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Browse more than 65,000 articles authored by our scientists over the past 100+ year history of the USGS and refine search by topic, location, year, and advanced search.

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The spatially adaptable filter for error reduction (SAFER) process: Remote sensing-based LANDFIRE disturbance mapping updates The spatially adaptable filter for error reduction (SAFER) process: Remote sensing-based LANDFIRE disturbance mapping updates

LANDFIRE (LF) has been producing periodic spatially explicit vegetation change maps (i.e., LF disturbance products) across the entire United States since 1999 at a 30 m spatial resolution. These disturbance products include data products produced by various fire programs, field-mapped vegetation and fuel treatment activity (i.e., events) submissions from various agencies, and...
Authors
Sanath Sathyachandran Kumar, Brian Tolk, Ray Dittmeier, Joshua J. Picotte, Inga P. La Puma, Birgit Peterson, Timothy Duckett Hatten

Transglobal spread of an ecologically relevant sea urchin parasite Transglobal spread of an ecologically relevant sea urchin parasite

Mass mortality of the dominant coral reef herbivore Diadema antillarum in the Caribbean in the early 1980s contributed to a persistent phase shift from coral- to algal-dominated reefs. In 2022, a scuticociliate most closely related to Philaster apodigitiformis caused further mass mortality of D. antillarum across the Caribbean, leading to >95% mortality at affected sites. Mortality was...
Authors
Isabella T. Ritchie, Brayan Vilanova-Cuevas, Ashley Altera, Kaileigh Cornfield, Ceri Evans, James S. Evans, Maria Hopson-Fernandes, Christina A. Kellogg, Elayne Looker, Oliver Taylor, Ian Hewson, Mya Breitbart

An introduction to Criteria for Reporting and Evaluating Exposure Datasets (CREED) for use in environmental assessments An introduction to Criteria for Reporting and Evaluating Exposure Datasets (CREED) for use in environmental assessments

Risks posed by environmental exposure to chemicals are routinely assessed to inform activities ranging from environmental status reporting to authorization and registration of chemicals for commercial uses. Environmental risk assessment generally relies on two key values generated from exposure data and ecotoxicity data. Data sets of measured concentrations of chemicals in environmental...
Authors
Graham Merrington, Lisa H. Nowell, Charles Peck

Assessing the probability of grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) spawning in the Sandusky River using discharge and water temperature Assessing the probability of grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) spawning in the Sandusky River using discharge and water temperature

Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella, Val.) is an invasive species in the Laurentian Great Lakes region with the potential for damaging the lake ecosystem and harming the region's economy. Grass carp spawning was documented in the Sandusky River, Ohio, in 2015 through targeted egg sampling. Continued egg sampling in the Sandusky River suggested that grass carp spawning is related to...
Authors
Sabrina Jaffe, Song S. Qian, Christine M. Mayer, Patrick M. Kocovsky, Anarita Gouveia

Mercury bioaccumulation and Hepatozoon spp. infections in two syntopic watersnakes in South Carolina Mercury bioaccumulation and Hepatozoon spp. infections in two syntopic watersnakes in South Carolina

Mercury (Hg) is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant known to bioaccumulate in biota and biomagnify in food webs. Parasites occur in nearly every ecosystem and often interact in complex ways with other stressors that their hosts experience. Hepatozoon spp. are intraerythrocytic parasites common in snakes. The Florida green watersnake (Nerodia floridana) and the banded watersnake...
Authors
M. Kyle Brown, David Lee Haskins, Melissa A. Pilgrim, Tracey D. Tuberville

Disease-smart climate adaptation for wildlife management and conservation Disease-smart climate adaptation for wildlife management and conservation

Climate change is a well-documented driver and threat multiplier of infectious disease in wildlife populations. However, wildlife disease management and climate-change adaptation have largely operated in isolation. To improve conservation outcomes, we consider the role of climate adaptation in initiating or exacerbating the transmission and spread of wildlife disease and the deleterious...
Authors
Lindsey Thurman, Katrina E. Alger, Olivia E. LeDee, Laura Thompson, Erik K. Hofmeister, Michael J Hudson, Alynn Martin, Tracy Melvin, Sarah H Olson, Mathieu Pruvot, Jason R. Rohr, Jennifer Szymanksi, Oscar Aleuy, Benjamin Zuckerberg

Season of death, pathogen persistence and wildlife behaviour alter number of anthrax secondary infections from environmental reservoirs Season of death, pathogen persistence and wildlife behaviour alter number of anthrax secondary infections from environmental reservoirs

An important part of infectious disease management is predicting factors that influence disease outbreaks, such as R, the number of secondary infections arising from an infected individual. Estimating R is particularly challenging for environmentally transmitted pathogens given time lags between cases and subsequent infections. Here, we calculated R for Bacillus anthracis infections...
Authors
Amelie C. Dolfi, Kyrre Kausrud, Kristyna Rysava, Celeste Champagne, Yen-Hua Huang, Zoe R. Barandongo, Wendy Christine Turner

Deep magmatic staging chambers for crustal layered mafic intrusions: An example from the Bushveld Complex of southern Africa Deep magmatic staging chambers for crustal layered mafic intrusions: An example from the Bushveld Complex of southern Africa

The deep mafic magmatic staging chambers of layered mafic intrusions have been conjectured but not imaged. Their existence has long been postulated from geochemical models which require multiple magma injections from staging chambers to account for their multi-scale igneous layering and variations in sources and degrees of crustal contamination. For the Bushveld Complex of southern...
Authors
Janine Cole, Carol A. Finn, Susan J. Webb

Parasites alter food-web topology of a subarctic lake food web and its pelagic and benthic compartments Parasites alter food-web topology of a subarctic lake food web and its pelagic and benthic compartments

We compared three sets of highly resolved food webs with and without parasites for a subarctic lake system corresponding to its pelagic and benthic compartments and the whole-lake food web. Key topological food-web metrics were calculated for each set of compartments to explore the role parasites play in food-web topology in these highly contrasting webs. After controlling for effects...
Authors
Shannon E. Moore, Anna Siwertsson, Kevin D. Lafferty, Armand M. Kuris, Miroslava Soldanova, Dana N. Morton, Raul Primicerio, Per-Arne Amundsen

Using stochastic point pattern analysis to track regional orientations of magmatism during the transition to cenozoic extension and Rio Grande rifting, Southern Rocky Mountains Using stochastic point pattern analysis to track regional orientations of magmatism during the transition to cenozoic extension and Rio Grande rifting, Southern Rocky Mountains

The southern Rocky Mountains in Colorado and northern New Mexico hosted intracontinental magmatism that developed during a tectonic transition from shortening (Laramide orogeny, ca. 75 to 40 Ma) through extension and rifting. We present a novel approach that uses stochastic weighted bootstrap simulations of a large set of new and historical geochronology data to better understand how...
Authors
Joshua Mark Rosera, Sean P. Gaynor, Alexey Ulianov, Urs Schaltegger

Detection probability and bias in machine-learning-based unoccupied aerial system non-breeding waterfowl surveys Detection probability and bias in machine-learning-based unoccupied aerial system non-breeding waterfowl surveys

Unoccupied aerial systems (UASs) may provide cheaper, safer, and more accurate and precise alternatives to traditional waterfowl survey techniques while also reducing disturbance to waterfowl. We evaluated availability and perception bias based on machine-learning-based non-breeding waterfowl count estimates derived from aerial imagery collected using a DJI Mavic Pro 2 on Missouri...
Authors
Reid Viegut, Elisabeth B. Webb, Andrew Raedeke, Zhicheng Tang, Yang Zhang, Zhenduo Zhai, Zhiguang Liu, Shiqi Wang, Jiuyi Zheng, Yi Shang
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